Matthew Vaughn | |
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Vaughn in March 2010
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Born |
Matthew Allard Robert Vaughn 7 March 1971 London, England, United Kingdom |
Citizenship | British |
Occupation | Producer, director, screenwriter |
Years active | 1995–present |
Spouse(s) | Claudia Schiffer (m. 2002) |
Children | 3 |
Matthew Allard de Vere Drummond (born Matthew Allard Robert Vaughn; 7 March 1971) is an English film producer, director, and screenwriter. He is best known for producing such films as (1998) and Snatch (2000) and directing the films Layer Cake (2004), Stardust (2007), Kick-Ass (2010), X-Men: First Class (2011), and Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015).
Vaughn was born in London. He had thought that he was the child of an affair between his mother, Kathy Ceaton (died 20 July 2013), and American actor Robert Vaughn. A paternity investigation subsequently identified his father as George Albert Harley de Vere Drummond, an English aristocrat who is a godson of King George VI.
Early in Vaughn's life, before the paternity investigation, Robert Vaughn asked for the child's surname to be Vaughn, and it continues today as Vaughn's professional name, though he now uses de Vere Drummond in his personal life.
Vaughn was educated at Stowe School in Buckingham. Taking a gap year between Stowe and university, he travelled around the world on a Hard Rock Cafe tour. After arriving in Los Angeles he began working as an assistant to a film director. He later returned to London, and attended University College London studying anthropology and ancient history. He dropped out after a few weeks.
Aged 25, Vaughn produced a little-seen thriller, The Innocent Sleep (1995), starring Annabella Sciorra and Michael Gambon. He continued as a producer on close friend Guy Ritchie's film . The film was a critical, popular and financial success, earning Vaughn and Ritchie £9 million each. Vaughn would later produce Ritchie's Snatch and Swept Away.